"Greeting!" "And may you speak, indeed?" All in the dark her sense grew clearer; She knew that she had, for company, All day an angel near her. "May you tell us of the life divine, To us unknown, to angels given?" "Count me your earthly joys, and I May teach you those of heaven." "They say the pleasures of earth are vain ; "And while he quickens the air with song, My breaths with scent, my fruits with flavor, Will he, dear angel, count as sin "See, at our feet the glow-worm shines, Lo! in the east a star arises; And thought may climb from worm to world Forever through fresh surprises: "And thought is joy. . . . And, hark! in the vale Music, and merry steps pursuing; They leap in the dance, blood -a soul in my Cries out, Awake, be doing! "Action is joy; or power at play, "And are these all?" She flushed in the dark. "These are not all. I have a lover; At sound of his voice, at touch of his hand, The cup of my life runs over. "Once, unknowing, we looked and neared, And doubted, and neared, and rested never, Till life seized life, as flame meets flame, To escape no more forever. "Lover and husband; then was love The wine of my life, all life enhancing: Now 't is my bread, too needful and sweet To be kept for feast-day chancing. VESPERS. ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER. WHEN I have said my quiet say, I thought beside the water's flow What matter now for promise lost, Thou lovest still the poor; O, blest I come to thee with empty hands, 273 ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER. [U. s. A., 1816-1848.] CHARITY. UNKNOWN. WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME. WHEN the grass shall cover me, Head to foot where I am lying; When not any wind that blows, Summer bloom or winter snows, Shall awake me to your sighing: Close above me as you pass, You will say, "How kind she was," You will say, "How true she was," When the grass grows over me. When the grass shall cover me, Holden close to earth's warm bosom; While I laugh, or weep, or sing, Nevermore for anything You will find in blade and blossom, Sweet small voices, odorous, Tender pleaders of my cause, That shall speak me as I was, When the grass grows over me. When the grass shall cover me! Ah, beloved in my sorrow, Very patient can I wait; Knowing that or soon or late, There will dawn a clearer morrow: When your heart will moan, "Alas, Now I know how true she was; Now I know how dear she was,' When the grass grows over me. UNKNOWN. AGAIN. O, SWEET and fair! O, rich and rare! That day so long ago. The autumn sunshine everywhere, The heather all aglow, The ferns were clad in cloth of gold, Such suns will shine, such waves will sing O, fit and few! O, tried and true! And so in earnest play The hours flew past, until at last The twilight kissed the shore. We said, "Such days shall come again Forever evermore." One day again, no cloud of pain And yet we strove in vain, in vain, Like, but unlike, the sun that shone, For ghosts unseen crept in between, And, when our songs flowed free, Sang discords in an undertone, And marred our harmony. "The past is ours, not yours," they said: "The waves that beat the shore, Though like the same, are not the same, O, never, never more!" LUCY LARCOM. [U. S. A.] A STRIP OF BLUE. I Do not own an inch of land, They bring me tithes divine, - A tribute rare and free: Richer am I than he who owns I freight them with my untold dreams, Than ever India knew, My ships that sail into the East Across that outlet blue. Sometimes they seem like living shapes, - All souls find sailing-room. The ocean grows a weariness With nothing else in sight; Its east and west, its north and south, Spread out from morn to night: We miss the warm, caressing shore, Its brooding shade and light. A part is greater than the whole; By hints are mysteries told; The fringes of eternity, God's sweeping garment-fold, In that bright shred of glimmering sea, I reach out for, and hold. |